75000 affordable houses to be built in Gujarat

GANDHINAGAR: To prove that it is serious about implementing its promise of affordable urban housing, Gujarat government plans to start construction of around 75,000 houses by its para institutions across the state.

“We are actually eyeing beginning the construction of one lakh houses, but we have concrete preparations for starting work on at least 75,000 houses,” said an official.

Sources disclosed that these houses will be built by institutions like corporations and urban development bodies in the cities. “The process of tendering is almost over in most of the cities like Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat,” said the official.

Sources said that the government is ready with its new policy for affordable urban housing that will be announced very soon. The document is awaiting final approval from chief minister.

In the run-up to the last assembly polls, the CM had promised to build 2.2 million affordable houses in the urban areas. “We visualize that out of these, five lakh would be constructed through institutional building by civic bodies and urban development authorities. Another seven lakh would be built under Rajiv Awas Yojana that intends to make the cities slum free. The remaining would be built in the public private partnership mode wherein private developers would be given various concessions to build residential structures,” said an official. The concessions offered to private developers would be in the shape of delayed payment of interests on loans and relaxing the by-laws.

All these three components will be the integral part of the new urban housing policy that is in the offing.

Officials said that proper safeguards are being put in place to ensure that the affordable houses being offered are good in quality. “Apart from the institutions building these houses keeping a tab on quality control, the quality of structures would also be evaluated by a third party,” said an official. He further disclosed that for the houses being built by private developers, the onus of maintenance of the buildings for ten years would be on these developers.

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